Jenna Glatzer, Ghostwriter

We've discovered the best game ever. It goes like this: 1. Mommy sticks a pail on her head. 2. Mommy says, "Hey, Sarina, what do you think of my new hat? Isn't it a lovely hat? I sure hope nobody steals my hat." 3. Sarina steals the hat. 4. Mommy hollers, "Ohh! How did you do it? How did you steal Mommy's hat?" 5. Sarina screams laughing. 6. Repeat, endlessly. We can do this for hours. It just never gets old.

She sure did. Her first word was "mama" during month 6. Last night, she started saying "baba." The adorableness of it is almost too much to bear. I awoke to the sounds of her practicing. "Ba... bama... maba... mbababababa!"

Please, visit here: http://www.xanga.com/no_Im_not_a_nurse That's Licia's blog. She runs a rescue center in Haiti. Before I had Sarina, I felt sympathy for suffering children. Now it's a physical pain that I can barely stand. I see Henrius, the five-year-old in the video, crying... and I think of my daughter and how much it kills me to hear her cry for five minutes because she has teething pain. That boy's skin is peeling off because of malnutrition. This is a center with 50-60 children in it at a time, not a giant company with corrupt executives. This is a place where you can actually help people save children's lives. Licia's sister, Lori, also has a blog. She runs the medical clinic next to the rescue center, where they see about 700 patients a week. There's a PayPal link and an address to send donations here: http://xanga.com/haitinurse4life They're doing the heavy lifting. Let's do the easy part. Please, spread the word. Let's make sure th...

Sarina's two front teeth are spaced widely apart so far, which makes me think back to my own youth, in which-- I am not kidding-- my parents had our Christmas card pictures retouched to erase some of my hideously gapped buck teeth. And this was before Photoshop, when you actually had to pay a photo lab to fix things with colored pencils or somesuch. Ahhh, braces. I would have been such a freak without you. Other people save for college when their kids are born. We're saving up for the orthodontist.

Michelle tagged me to write a post about what I would write if I had an extra hour every day to write . Hmm. Now, the real answer is that I'd just use that hour to get my assignments done, but I have to assume that the spirit of this meme is to find out what our "heart projects" are. Someone else asked me about that by e-mail recently. Well, technically, I asked myself. It went sort of like this: He asked me if there was anything no one ever asked me about my writing before that I wanted to be asked. I said I had never been asked if there was anything I wanted to write but wouldn't. So... he asked. Anyway, what I explained then was that I had several ideas for books that I'd love to write, but wouldn't be commercial enough to justify the time I'd spend on them. Some Absolute Write readers might remember the time I went searching for a book that would be appropriate to teach my brother (who has Down syndrome) about dating. He had asked me for a book that w...

Yes, she did have (ahem) more than one costume. What can I say? Babies 'R' Us had a clearance sale, and her dad got excited.

So where was I? (Read the previous post first if you haven't already. I'm writing about how I became a writer. I'll wait here.) Right, so I was now an advertising major, and as such, had to take writing courses. That was cool by me because I had always enjoyed writing and had taken elective writing courses as an art major. I had even tried to take an advanced workshop in poetry, but I was turned down. What a disappointment that was! I remember waiting outside the class when the list was posted, and searching and searching for my name. I remember, too, the poem I used as an "audition," and how stupid I felt afterwards. Dumb poem! Why did I write you? Why did I think you were any good? I had a slightly weird writing history in school. Very early on-- I'm talking first grade, I think-- my teacher wrote on my report card that she expected to see my name on the New York Times Bestseller List. My mom, who was an English teacher and thrilled! thrilled! thrilled! by t...

Don't think I've ever told the whole real story of how I came to be a writer. I'll start today. This could take a while. I entered Furman University in South Carolina as an art major. After just a semester, though, I realized that the school was not the right fit for me. (The cafeteria was segregated, for a start.) I transfered to a community college for the remainder of the year because I had missed the deadlines to transfer to any of the other schools I was interested in. My big hope was to go to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), but I applied to several other schools "just in case." The acceptances came in quickly-- Pratt, Parsons, I don't even remember where else. I took a trip into the city by myself one day to see how it felt, though, and a man followed me from the subway to Parsons. I ended up hiding in a bathroom for at least an hour until he left. Decided the city was not the place for me. So I eagerly awaited the response from RISD. I watched...

Just noticed Christine also tagged me for Crazy 8s. I accept. :) 8 things I'm passionate about 1. Being a mom 2. Chocolate chip cookies and milk 3. Disability issues, specifically Down syndrome 4. Music with excellent lyrics-- try Counting Crows and Indigo Girls 5. Musical theatre, in all its forms 6. Children's books 7. Fighting injustice, defending underdogs 8. Homemade things 8 things I want to do before I die 1. Have more children 2. Make more crafts 3. Take vacations, pretty much anywhere 4. Go to more Renaissance Faires 5. Learn to cook 6. Get smarter 7. See scammers put out of business 8. Get back to the theatre in some capacity... maybe backstage 8 things I say often 1. I love you 2. You are the sweetest baby in the whole world 3. Are we out of milk? 4. I have to go to the post office 5. People are weird 6. Have you seen my shoes? 7. Awesome 8. I have to get some work done 8 books I've recently read 1. All the Available Light 2. Marilyn Monroe 3. Marilyn Among Frien...

Christine over at the blog From Dates to Diapers is having a birthday bash this week, and as is the nature of cool people, giving other people presents for her birthday. One of the ways to win is to respond to her blog prompts, and I'm going to take her up on this one-- an unforgettable birthday surprise. I was in college. My roommate had a thing about birthdays-- she always wanted to make sure that no one was forgotten on their birthdays, even if they were people on the floor who we didn't know very well. I thought that was a special thing about her. Can't remember now whether or not she actually bought everyone little presents... I think it was just a card, but still. Most of the people on our floor were freshmen, away from home for the first time, and knowing someone remembered your birthday is a good thing. Anyway. I had a favorite a cappella band at school. I'm kind of an a cappella junkie, if you must know. But The Dear Abbeys were the ones I actually followed a...

Well, here we are at 7 months, and I'm still a "full-time pumper," meaning that I use a breast pump every 3 hours. I had planned on doing it for 6 months, and to be honest, thought that was rather heroic. But then I joined an online group called "PumpMoms," and the first couple of messages I read were sobering: there were two messages from moms who had been exclusive pumpers for a year, and were writing to say they were finally calling it quits. Damn. A year. Well, if they could do it... I felt wimpy for stopping at 6 months. The APA recommends breastmilk for a year, so these women were determined to provide it. It was like coasting along at the end of a race, only to have someone pass you and tell you they're going to run the race again. A personal challenge. Or peer pressure, depending on how you look at it. Either way, I decided I would try to make it to a year, too. I can't pretend that it's fun, though. I've pumped in the oddest places-- inc...

For just about every book I've written, I've kept a large looseleaf notebook filled with notes, correspondence, photocopied medical studies, etc. If I kept all these notebooks on my shelves, though, they'd crowd me out of my office eventually-- so I reuse them. I have two big ones (1 1/2 inch ring binders) and two smaller ones that I keep swapping out when it's time for a new book. It's always a strange feeling, though, tossing out the old. Each of those notebooks represents several months of my life. But when I look through them, I realize I'm done-- there's no need to hold on to a hundred newspaper articles about bullying when the book is already in bookstores. So I throw the notebook contents in the recycling bin and put a new label on the spine of the notebook... but it's still hard to do. Only once did I regret it, and that was my Celine notebook. I still know which one it was. I replaced it with notes for another book, but every time I look at it, ...

and I gave it to her. Waaaaaaaah!!! *Flogs self forever.*

And here's the video to prove it. And a still shot. :)

and they were, "I have to go to work." I asked her to repeat it in the dream, and she did: "I haf-ta go to work." I was so excited that she was talking, and so sad that that's what she was saying. I knew it meant that she had heard me say that too many times. Sometimes my dreams are really on the nose.

Oh, yeah, and a PS to my last post: the whole publishing world played musical chairs while I was off in babyland. Two of my favorite agents have left publishing altogether (one's opening a retail store and the other is in nursing school), one of my favorite editors moved houses and I found out only by accident, another is now a freelance writer... I know I was out of the loop for a while, but was it really that long? Who moved my cheese? (I actually have no idea if that's an appropriate use of that phrase, seeing as I've never read the book. It just felt right.)

I didn't expect it to be this hard to reconcile motherhood and writing. I figured all along that I was so lucky to be in the position I'm in-- I work from home and make my own schedule, so I always thought I'd be able to continue fairly easily once baby arrived. I've hesitated to write a post like this, because it brings up another issue bloggers face: my editors could read this. My editors could read this and think, "She's not going to be committed to her work." But for the past 7 years, I've been telling the truth about my career and what I know about publishing in the hopes that it might help other writers, and I don't want to give that up now because it's a riskier topic. So I'll tell it. Somewhere around halfway through my pregnancy, I stopped actively looking for work. I continued the projects I was already contracted for, and took on some small work here and there, but took a "wait and see" approach to the bigger work. I d...

I can't believe this is happening again, but it is. Parents, if you haven't already, check out this handy toy recall finder . Mattel has announced its third recall this summer for lead paint in children's toys. This time it's Barbie accessories, Geo Trax locomotive toys, and Big, Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band drums. I was blissfully unaware of how poorly regulated products for children are until I had a baby of my own. Now I'm just mad. Bottles, sippy cups, and breast pumps that leach toxic chemicals (BPA) into baby's milk, botullism in baby food, lead paint in toys... Sarina's just 6 months old, and these things have all happened just since she's been born. Mums The Word is collecting comments to send to the FDA, and they're promoting Natural Pod , a company that manufactures wooden and natural textile toys and clothing for babies and kids. I hope this is the end of the lead paint recalls. Somehow I fear there's much more to come.

Ooooh, I so want to win this. If you do, too, hurry on over before 10:00 tonight. It's a Strawberry Fields Forever sling from Rockin' Baby , and the contest is here . And in keeping with the theme, here's a new Sarina-n-me pic with our wrap on.